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Mistake 1: Not testing

Testing is the best way to avoid so-called “stupid mistakes”. They happen rather rarely if you configure everything using templates for popular traffic sources and affiliate networks (Voluum has over 60 of them) and integrations.

But even if you use templates and integrations, you should always dedicate those few extra minutes to make sure everything works. If there was an option to give all affiliates one piece of advice, it would be: “Test what you can”.

👉 You can test the first part of your campaign funnel yourself by simply clicking your campaign URL and checking whether: you’re taken to the landing page, a landing page loads quickly, the CTA button takes you to the offer page.

👉 When advertising in a different GEO, you can use a VPN service to check if your landing page is displayed correctly for visitors from that country.

👉 Apart from that, you can also use your web browser’s developer tools to see, how your web page looks like on different mobile devices.

For example, in Chrome. follow the steps below:

Go to your web page.Open Developer Tools option.Select the mobile device type to see, how your web page would look like on this device.

For the second part of the campaign funnel, you need to ask your affiliate network’s account manager to generate a test conversion. Some affiliate networks offer this option inside their panel. So ask for the conversion or generate it by yourself and go back to Voluum to see if this conversion has appeared in reports.

Mistake 2: Working blindly

Apart from not testing, the biggest mistake an affiliate can make is the assumption that they can work blindly. That they know their niche and audience so well that they don’t need to analyze data, learn from it, and adjust their approach based on changing conditions.

So the biggest mistake would be hubris.

Not using a tracker and guessing what should work is asking for trouble. Or, at least, asking for money lost that was senselessly spent on traffic that didn’t bring any profit.

Not being good at affiliate marketing at the beginning but working your way towards better campaigns is ok. Completely ignoring the benefits of tracking, failing, and then complaining about bots or the state of the industry is not ok.

How to work smart

Use the tracker to your advantage:

Track everything you can. Don’t skip conversion tracking, track impressions if you have an option to do so, use integrations to reliably pass cost information.

Analyze different metrics. Look into the ROI, CTR and CR of a whole campaign or single placements.

Take actions and adjust your approach. Even your best thought-out campaign should be tweaked if data shows that your audience doesn’t respond well to it.

Keep testing new ideas. Never settle on a working campaign. Conditions may change at any moment. Your offer may die out or your visitors may get tired with your ad. Always have something new and tested ready. Keep running new landing pages with just 20% of traffic, try new ad ideas, work on headlines.

Check for errors, sudden spikes in traffic and other anomalies.

Mistake 3: Poor landing page

You don’t need to read stats to know that a slow-loading web page is usually skipped– just recall your own experience. If that’s the case with your landing page then you can’t be angry with a low CTR and high bounce rate. Time is money, especially for your visitors. Any load time above 3 seconds is unacceptable.

Test your landing page for:

Speed

Mobile friendliness

Responsiveness

Attractiveness

When it comes to your landing page’s attractiveness, it’s hard to measure it… right?

Wrong.

You can A/B test different ideas and see what sticks. Voluum even gives you the option to use AI that will determine the best performing lander, offer, or its combination.

Mistake 4: Wrong traffic or offer type

When starting out, it’s understandable to be attracted to high-payout offers — just a few sales is all you need to be profitable. But these offers are really a trap. It takes a lot more to convince someone to spend $10 dollars than $1. 

Lower-payout offers make it easier to get conversions and develop skills that you can then apply in higher-payout offers later. 

Good affiliate networks will provide you with support from account managers who can recommend offers to promote. 

Similarly to a bad offer, you might also get the wrong type of traffic. A common newbie mistake is to target Tier 1 GEOs; these contain more sophisticated visitors who require more to be convinced. 

On that note, another mistake is choosing an ad format such as native which demands more complex landing pages and a higher budget. If you choose a high-price, technically-challenging traffic type when starting out, you’ll burn through your limited budget before you have really learned how things work